“Well, how’re ye goin’ t’ like it?” asked Jack Welsh at supper, that evening, noticing how thoughtfully the boy was eating.

“Oh, I shall like it,” answered Allan, confidently, looking up with a strange light in his eyes. “A position like that gives one such a sense of power and of responsibility. It’s worth doing.”

Jack nodded.

“That’s it!” he said. “That’s th’ spirit! Buck up to it, an’ it ain’t half so hard to do. That’s th’ way with everything in this world. Th’ feller who’s afeerd he’s goin’ t’ git licked, most ginerally does.”

“Well, I may get licked,” said Allan, “but if I do, it’ll be because I’m not strong enough, not because I’m afraid.”

“I’ve seen little men lick big ones by mere force o’ will,” said Jack. "Th’ big man was whipped afore he started in. I believe that most o’ th’ people who make a failure in this world, do it because they don’t keep on fightin’ as long as they’ve got any ? 222 ? wind left, but sort o’ give up an’ turn tail an’ try t’ run away—an’ th’ fust thing they know they git a clip on th’ jaw that puts ’em down an’ out."

In the days that followed, Allan certainly felt no inclination to run away. He applied his whole mind to acquiring a full knowledge of the dispatcher’s work. He studied diligently the various forms of train-order, and picked up such information as he could concerning the capacity of the various engines and the character of engineers and conductors. At the end of the week, he felt that he had the office work of the dispatcher pretty well learned. Another week was spent in “learning the road”—a week during which every daylight hour was spent in travelling over the road on freight and passenger, learning the location and length of sidings, the position of switches, water-tanks, and signals. Whenever he could he rode on the engine, for though that method of travel had long since lost its novelty, its fascination for the boy had increased rather than diminished. Besides, there was always a great deal of information to be picked up from the engineer, as well as no little entertainment. For the engineer, especially if he was an old one, was sure to possess a rich store of tales of the road—tales humourous or tragic, as the case might be—tales of practical jokes, of ghosts, of strange happenings, or of accidents and duty done at any cost, of fearless looking in the face of death.

He had taken a trip over the entire east end, on ? 223 ? the last day of the week, and decided to make the return trip on an extra freight, which was to leave Belpre, the eastern terminus of the freight business, about the middle of the afternoon. So he got a lunch at the depot restaurant at Parkersburg, and then walked across the big bridge which spans the Ohio there, reaching the yards at Belpre just as the freight was getting ready to pull out. He was pleased to find that the engineer was Bill Michaels, an old friend, who at once suggested that there was a place in the cab at Allan’s disposal, if he cared to occupy it.

Allan thanked him and clambered up right willingly, taking his place on the forward end of the long seat which ran along the left side of the cab—the fireman’s side. He watched the engineer “oil round”—that is, walk slowly around the engine, a long-spouted oil-can in his hand, and make sure that all the bearings were properly lubricated and all the oil-cups full. The fireman meanwhile devoted his energies to feeding his fire and getting up steam, and Allan perceived, from a certain awkwardness with which he handled the shovel and opened and shut the heavy door of the fire-box, that he was new to the business. But even a green fireman can get up steam when his engine is standing still, so the needle of the indicator climbed steadily round the dial, until at last, the pressure threw up the safety-valve and the engine “popped off.”

? 224 ?

The fireman leaned wearily upon his shovel and scraped the sweat from his forehead with bent forefinger.

“Hot work, isn’t it?” said Allan, smiling.

“’Tain’t near so bad as ’twill be,” returned the fireman, whose name was Pinckney Jones, and who was known by his intimates as Pink, or Pinkey, a nickname which he had tried in vain to live down. “It’ll be a reg’lar wrastle t’ keep ’er goin’. Something’s got int’ th’ cantankerous old beast, an’ she won’t steam t’ save ye.”

He bent again to his task, raking and shaking up the fire, and throwing two or three more shovelfuls of coal into the blazing fire-box. Then the engineer clambered up, followed by the front brakeman, and took his seat on the other side of the cab. He stuck his head out the window, to watch for the conductor’s signal. Presently it came, he opened the throttle gently, and the train, slowly gathering headway, rattled over the switches, out of the yards, and straightened out for the journey westward.

“You want to be mighty careful this trip, Bill,” remarked the brakeman. “We’ve got two car-loads of wild animals back there. If we have a smash-up, there’ll be lions and tigers and Lord knows what all runnin’ loose about the country.”

“That would create considerable disturbance,” agreed Bill. “Well, I’ll try to keep her on the track. Where’re they billed to?”

? 225 ?

“They’re goin’ to the Zoological Garden at Cincinnati. There’s a whackin’ big elephant in the first car and a miscellaneous lot of lions, tigers, snakes, and other vermin in the second. Yes, sir, there would be lively times if they got loose.”

“Ain’t there nobody with ’em?”

“Oh, yes; there’s a couple of fellers to feed ’em; but these ain’t the broken-to-harness, drawing-room kind of wild animals. They’re right from the jungle, and are totally unacquainted with the amenities of civilization.”

And then, well pleased with his own facility of diction, he got out a plug of tobacco, bit off a piece, and offered the plug to Bill. Bill accepted the offer, took a tremendous chew, and returned the remnant to its owner.

“And now, Pinkey,” he remarked, to the perspiring fireman, “if you’ll kindly git up a few more pounds of steam, we’ll be joggin’ along. Mebbe you don’t object to stayin’ here all night, but I’d like t’ git home t’ see my wife an’ children.”

“I’m a-doin’ my best,” responded Pinkey, desperately, “th’ ole brute jest won’t steam, an’ that’s all they is to it.”

“Yes,” said the engineer, with irony, but keeping one eye on the track ahead, “I’ve heerd firemen say th’ same thing lots o’ times. You’ve got to nuss her along, boy—don’t smother th’ fire that a-way. An’ keep th’ door shet.”

? 226 ?

“How’m I a-goin’ t’ git th’ coal int’ th’ fire-box if I don’t open th’ door?” demanded Pinkey.

“Jim, swing it fer him,” said the engineer to the brakeman, and the latter, who had assisted at the breaking-in of many a green fireman, demonstrated to Pinkey how the door of the fire-box must be swung open and shut between each shovelful of coal. To fire an engine properly is an art which requires more than one lesson to acquire, but Pinkey made a little progress, and after awhile had the satisfaction of seeing the indicator-needle swing slowly up toward the point desired.

Just then, Michaels, glancing at his water-gauge, saw that it was getting rather low, and opened the throttle of the injector in order to fill the boiler; but instead of the water flowing smoothly through from the tank, there was a spurt of steam which filled the cab. He tried again, and with the same result.

“You blame fool!” he snorted, turning an irate face upon the unfortunate fireman, “didn’t you know enough t’ see that th’ tank was full afore we left Belpre? What ’d you think we’d steam on—air?”

“It was full,” quavered Pinkey. “I helped th’ hostler fill it.”

“Oh, come!” protested the engineer. “Mebbe you’ll tell me it’s full now!”

Without replying, Pinkey stooped and opened a ? 227 ? little cock on the front of the tank, near the bottom. Not a drop of water came out of it.

“Dry as a bone!” cried the engineer, his face purple. “Mebbe you’ll say I used it—mebbe you’ll say th’ engine drunk up a whole tankful inside o’ ten mile. Th’ only question is,” he added, with another glance at his gauge, “kin we git to Little Hocking?”

Little Hocking, the nearest station, was about four miles away, and it looked for a time as though the water in the boiler would not be sufficient to carry the train so far, and the fireman would be compelled to draw his fire, while the brakeman tramped to the next station for help. Such an accident would have made both engineer and fireman the laughing-stock of the road, besides leading to an investigation by the trainmaster, and a session “on the carpet.” So Bill, although boiling mad, nursed the engine along as carefully as he could, making every pound of steam count, and finally drew up in triumph beside the water-tank at Little Hocking.

“There, you lobster,” he said to Pinkey, wiping off the perspiration, “now fill her up.”

Pinkey lowered the spout of the water-tank, opened the gate and let the water rush down into the tank of the engine. It would hold seven thousand gallons, and the fireman waited until the water brimmed over the top and splashed down along the sides before he turned it off.

? 228 ?

“Now,” he said, defiantly, to Michaels, “you see fer yourself she’s full. Th’ way she’s steamin’, I bet that won’t carry us to Stewart.”

The engineer grunted contemptuously.

“Remarkable, ain’t it, how much these green firemen know?” he remarked to the front brakeman, as he gently opened the throttle.

“You’ll see,” said Pinkey, doggedly, and fell to work “ladling in the lampblack.”

Michaels watched him for a few moments in silence.

“What’s the matter?” he inquired, at length. “Got a hole in the fire-box?”

“No; why?” asked Pinkey, pausing between two shovelfuls.

“Somebody buried back there, an’ you’re tryin’ to dig him out?” pursued the engineer, with a gesture toward the pile of coal in the tender.

“What you talkin’ about, anyway?” demanded Pinkey, staring at him in amazement.

“Say, Jim,” said the engineer to the brakeman, “take that scoop away from that idiot, will ye? Pinkey, git up there on your box an’ set down or I’ll report ye fer wastin’ th’ company’s fuel.”

“She won’t steam without coal,” protested Pinkey.

“No; nor she won’t steam with a bellyful like that, either,” retorted the engineer, throwing on the draft. “Now I’ve got t’ blow about half of it out the smoke-stack.”

? 229 ?

He watched grimly as the bl............